


The Bluebell Line

by LittleLynn



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Reverse Big Bang, Sharing a Bed, obi was never a jedi, qui left the order, they find each other anyway, universe alterations with a fairytale feel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:08:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26866417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLynn/pseuds/LittleLynn
Summary: Obi-Wan was feeling foolish. He had lived by the forest for his entire life, the idea of getting lost in it after two decades was absurd, yet here he was, walking around in circles, unable to find his way.
Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 14
Kudos: 123
Collections: Backwards QuiObi Bang





	The Bluebell Line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [acciopudding](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acciopudding/gifts).



> For [accio](https://grapemartini.tumblr.com/) and the beautiful art they provided for this event, I simply couldn't resist <3

Obi-Wan had been feeling foolish. He had lived by the forest for his entire life, the idea of getting lost in it after two decades was absurd, yet here he was, walking around in circles, unable to find his way. 

Two decades living by the impossible vast Vale’Den Forest, two decades of hearing the warnings about how easy it was to get lost inside, how important it was not to go deeper than the bluebell line on the forest floor, an unofficial marker drawn up over years painting out the last safe spot. Two decades and Obi-Wan still hadn’t learned. 

He should have paid more attention to his mother, when she’d tried to teach him how to work out directions by the stars, he hadn’t been able to see why he would ever be without some piece of technology that would be able to find the way. 

As it was, his navigator was dead in his pocket, swirling uncontrollably, something that he hadn’t noticed until he was past the bluebell line. Though he had a suspicion that it hadn’t started until he had crossed the line. 

Obi-Wan shivered, bringing his arms up around himself and trying not to think too much. Because he had been feeling foolish, but now panic was starting to creep up his spine. It wasn’t that the forest was sinister, or held an particularly dangerous creatures - although, there were plenty of folktales that spoke of monsters, none of them were true. The risk of the forest lay simply in its vastness. 

Thought long stretches of it, it was impossible to see the sky for the thick canopy, it swallowed noise among the thick trees and many panicking children over the years had stumbled deeper when trying to escape its clutches. It was a shame, it would be a beautiful place, if it weren’t currently trying to claim Obi-Wan as it’s latest victim. 

It thrummed with that energy Obi-Wan had felt his entire life, the one that let him move things without touching them sometimes, or gave him warnings before something bad happened. Perhaps that was why he had been complacent about going beyond the bluebell line to look for some medicinal herbs for the healer, that energy had practically invited him in, not warned him off. 

He should have listened to his uncle, when he bellyached about weird forces and sorcery not to be listened to.

It was dark already, he’d been gone for hours but he knew there would be no search party beyond the bluebell line, all that had ever done was lead to more villagers lost. He wouldn’t be able to see at all, were it not for the fireflies shedding a faint light around the trees, the only reason he wasn’t tripping over with every other step. 

“Do not panic. Do not panic. Do _not_ panic,” Obi-Wan muttered to himself under his breath, but it was hard. It was getting colder, darker, and there was just as much chance he was getting deeper as there was he was heading back towards home. 

He could easily freeze out here, and if he didn’t, that would only mean he had to start worrying about dehydration and starvation instead. Then there were the animals, teh forest didn’t have particularly dangerous creatures as far as they knew, but Obi-Wan was small, always had been, and hardly an imposing figure likely to ward off predators. Not to mention the fact that no one who had delved deep into the forest had ever returned, so really who was to say that there weren’t dangerous creatures lurking in here after all. 

As if to punctuate his point, he hard a strange clanging in the distance, a sharp barking that could easily have been some kind of wolf. 

“Do not panic. Do not panic. Do _not_ panic,” Obi-Wan said to himself again, faster this time, but the ship had sailed and he was panicking now. 

He was going to die out here, he was actually, genuinely going to die in a forest that he knew better than to go too far into. He was going to die in the forest because he hadn’t listened to his mother, like some kind of small child opposed to a grown man. He was going to die in a forest because he decided to trust some weird energy that he’d never understood instead of a long history of people getting lost in the forest. 

His heart began thundering in his ears so loudly that Obi-Wan could scarcely hear the noises around him anymore and he dropped to his knees to try and steady his breathing. That energy, usually a fairly calm ocean around him was now roiling in his panic, crashing against him and pulling him this way and that. He had followed it this far and it had only gotten him irreparably lost, so he tried to ignore it, tried to ignore the way it crashed around him. 

Panicking wasn’t going to help him and he stared at the leaves on the ground, illuminated by the amber flow of the fireflies and tried to focus his mind. It was difficult, there were so many things he didn’t want to think about. But he had to try and figure out a way out; perhaps going the opposite way to where the energy was pushing him? But that was guesswork at best, and he had been weaving his way through the trees, turned around so many times. 

He shivered as he got his breathing under control and buried his face in his hands, ashamed of himself when he started crying. He was getting grass and mud stains on the knees of his cream clothes, but it didn’t matter, he wouldn’t get the chance to try and get them out. He wished his hair was longer, so that it might keep the chill off the back of his neck, but he’d always kept it short to be more practical when working the farms. 

He wasn’t sure how long he knelt there, but he managed to get his breathing back under control, taking long drags in through his nose until he felt a little more controlled. It was enough that he could hear rustling in some of the low set bushes, enough to almost having him panicking again, enough for tears to start falling down his cheeks again, knowing how his mother would despair when she couldn’t find him in his little house come morning. 

He imagined large and small beasts coming to tear him apart, predators of the forest that picked off anyone who passed the bluebell line, nocturnal terrors that the village was safe from because of its noise and all the people living there. But then through the bushes came no beast ready to shred him, but two loth-cats looking up at him with big, curious eyes.

“Oh I’m an idiot,” Obi-Wan sighed, his shoulder sagging, no longer tense around his ears. He reached out a tentative hand and ruffled one between the ears and it nuzzled into his touch. It didn’t change the reality of his situation though, while the cats clearly meant him no harm, he was still going to die of simple exposure before long. 

The thought was enough to have him crying back into his hands again and the cats pressed up against him, behaving in an oddly domesticated way for creatures that lived so deep in the forest. Obi-Wan had certainly never seen them around the village before, he didn’t even know they had loth-cats here. 

Obi-Wan looked up again when he heard another rustling through the trees, something bigger coming his way now. He tried to push the cats behind him, as if he could protect them somehow, completely unarmed and helpless as he was, but they were jumping excitedly, yipping around him and wouldn’t be corralled. Obi-Wan swallowed thickly, wondering if he should have hidden, but then through the trees a voice called. 

“Sapir, Tarine! Did you find him?” The voice called, and Obi-Wan shivered as the cats hopped around yipping louder as if in answer. He worried that he might be the _him_ , and wondered what boogeyman could possibly be real, and looking for him. 

There was no way he knew anyone out here, the voice didn’t sound like any of the men from the village even if they would come this far; some kind of witch then. Obi-Wan felt ridiculous for even thinking it, but he couldn’t come up with another reason. Finally, putting Obi-Wan’s hammering heart - and wild imagination - out of its misery, he emerged through the thicket. 

He was tall, one of the tallest people Obi-Wan had ever seen; too tall and broad to be a native surely, though he did look at home in these woods. One of his large hands was holding a walking stick - or a branch that had been crudely whittled into one - and he was dressed in simple beige tunics and leggings, with strong brown boots. He had long chestnut hair that was greying at his temples and hanging loose; impractical for the forest, it probably got tangled on branches all the time - but he probably also had a warm neck. 

Everything about him was exactly what Obi-Wan hadn’t expected to emerge from the trees, perhaps most incongruous of all was the smile on his face, kind not malicious, not the look of a hunter finding his prey. It was relieved, if anything, accentuating the crows feet around his eyes, his short beard moving with the expression as the man came to a halt. 

“There you are. Good work ladies,” the man said, bending down to pet both of the cats as they slunk around his feet before he returned his eyes to Obi-Wan and tilted his head to the side. “Are you alright?” 

“Who are you,” Obi-Wan asked, annoyed that his nervousness showed in his voice so clearly, shaking slightly. The man was bathed in a warm glow from the fireflies and it only made Obi-Wan more suspicious, surely someone who lived this deeply in the forest couldn’t be harmless. 

“I am Qui-Gon Jinn,” he answered easily. The name meant nothing to Obi-Wan, he could recall it from any of the stories the villagers told about monsters that lurked in the woods. 

“What are you doing out here?” Obi-Wan asked, resisting the urge to shuffle backwards on his knees. 

“I was looking for you. But more generally I live here, well, near here. If that is what you meant,” he answered easily, as if anything he was saying made sense. That energy in Obi-Wan’s chest was encouraging him to reach out with it, try to read him as he could with some people in the village, but Obi-Wan ignored it. It had brought him nothing but trouble today. 

“No one lives out here. And how could you have been looking for me, I don’t know you, you couldn’t have known I was here,” Obi-Wan said, wondering if he should get up from the floor, but he was nervous to move. 

“It is not often I feel other force sensitives anymore, you’re the only presence I can feel, and well, your panic was amplifying your signature. You were quite loud,” Qui-Gon smiled at him, as if Obi-Wan should know what any of that meant. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Well. I am explaining badly. Why don’t you come with me, we can get you warm and I can explain why you eat,” Qui-Gon replied, offering Obi-Wan a hand that he was too wary to take. 

“Why would you want to help me?” Obi-Wan asked, not yet taking the hand. 

“Because you are lost and cold and hungry, and it seemed like the right thing to do,” Qui-Gon replied. 

Obi-Wan felt trapped, if this man meant him ill then going with him wouldn’t be good for him, but if he stayed out here alone then the forest would devour him one way or another anyway. Not knowing what else to do, Obi-Wan reached out with that energy that’d got him into all this trouble in the first place, and tried to sense the intentions of the man in front of him. 

He gasped when he felt something unlike anything he had ever felt before. He felt like an expansive forest in the glow of summer, bright and verdant, and an answering pulse of energy against his searching nudge, he felt warm and steadfast, honest and trustworthy and strong. Perhaps strangest of all, he felt somehow inevitable, though Obi-Wan couldn’t parse what that might mean. 

“There you are,” Qui-Gon smiled at him, acknowledging Obi-Wan’s search. Not sure what else to do, Obi-Wan took his hand and let himself be pulled from the floor and onto his feet. Qui-Gon’s hand was bigger than his, encompassed his hand as he helped him up, soft in some places, and callused in others. 

“You’re very cold, we’d better get moving.” He added, letting go of Obi-Wan’s cold fingers and taking a few steps before stopping and stooping to pick up one of the loth-cats, which he then deposited in Obi-Wan’s chilled hands. 

“Here, take Sapir, she’s like a little furnace,” he explained, and Obi-Wan could feel the truth of his words. The cat didn’t seem to mind, snuggling into his chest and licking at his dirty clothes while the other cat - Tarine - hopped along beside them. “But I am sure she would like to know the name of the man carrying her.”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi. Um, where are we going?” Obi-Wan ventured, not that it really mattered, he was fairly sure he would never be able to outrun someone so tall and strong anyway. 

“Back to my cabin. It’s not much but I find that it’s more than enough. There’s a fire and food.” 

“How do you live out here?” Obi-Wan asked, trying to ignore the way Sapir was now running her nails through the fabric of his clothes and raking it up, this outfit was likely ruined, and if it was the only casualty of Obi-Wan’s foray into the forest then he would consider himself lucky. Qui-Gon looked over his shoulder at him, giving him an amused smile. 

“It's a forest, it has everything you need to live. There is fresh water, if you know where to look for it, the plants are abundant with fruit if you climb high enough, and there is more wood than anyone could possibly know what to do with,” he replied, and Obi-Wan felt silly, even though he had a suspicion that Qui-Gon hadn’t intended it.

He quieted for a moment and cuddled the cat close for the extra warmth as he followed Qui-Gon’s purposeful route through the woods. It all looked the same to Obi-Wan, the slightest variations in the trees and shrubs that would take a lifetime to learn, the stars mostly shrouded by the canopy of leaves. 

“How do you know your way, everything looks the same,” Obi-Wan asked as they passed yet another huge tree with a wide trunk. 

“Every living thing feels different in the force. Here,” he said, stopping and offering Obi-Wan a hand. He shifted the cat into one hand and tentatively took it with the other. “Close your eyes and reach out like you did to me earlier, when you weren’t sure if I could be trusted, but reach out to one of the trees instead.” 

“But they’re not alive,” Obi-Wan said, even as he obediently closed his eyes. “I’ve only ever done it to people before.”

“They are alive, they just aren’t sentient, and they are alive in the force, brimming with living energy,” he explained, and Obi-Wan tried to reach out, made a surprised noise when he did find some kind of mark in the energy he could feel - the force, as Qui-Gon called it. “There you can feel it, now reach out to the one beside it, do they feel the same?” 

“They’re similar but…” Obi-Wan trailed off, as he explored the second tree with the force, he knew somehow that it was older, and that there were three different families of birds that called it’s branches home. 

“But different,” Qui-Gon said, letting go of Obi-Wan’s hand, and when he opened his eyes, he found the older man smiling at him. “You are a quick study.”

“I’ve never met anyone else who can use that energy before. No one else in the village can do it.”

“You’re so bright in the force I find it hard to believe that the jedi didn’t find you. This is one of the planets they scout,” Qui-Gon said. Obi-Wan knew about the jedi, everyone knew about the jedi, and he felt a little shame rise in him, at a story he had been told many times, so many that he sometimes thought he could remember it himself. He looked at the floor as they continued to walk. 

“They did, people tell me about the jedi coming. But they tested me, and I wasn’t...they decided that I wasn’t one of them. I never thought the way I can move things or feels things had anything to do with them, because if that was it, they would have taken me, right?” 

“I have long since stopped trying to make sense of the decisions of the council. But it is strange, you feel very strong to me, I can’t see why they wouldn’t take you. But do not be ashamed Obi-Wan, whoever’s failing this was, it certainly wasn’t yours” Qui-Gon said, holding a long hanging branch out of the way. 

“How do you know so much about the jedi?” Obi-Wan asked, to the people living out here, they felt like a mysterious faction millions of light years away, keeping the core worlds safe and with little reason to appear on the outer rim. 

“Because for a long time, I was one,” Qui-Gon said, and Obi-wan’s mouth dropped open but before he could gather words to respond with, a little clearing opened up in front of them with a small log cabin surrounded by vegetable patches and a number of animals drinking from a little brook that opened into a pond beside the house. “Here we are.”

“Oh. This is...lovely,” Obi-Wan said honestly, there was even a thin plume of smoke coming out the chimney, signalling a fair - _warmth_. 

“Were you expecting a cave, or a hovel?” Qui-Gon asked, sounding thoroughly amused rather than offended. 

“Honestly, yes?” Obi-Wan replied sheepishly, but then Qui-Gon laughed, and Obi-Wan found it hard to believe that the owner of such a laugh could ever mean him malice, startled by how quickly he was becoming at ease beside a man he didn’t know, who lived in a forest that was notoriously dangerous. 

“Well sorry to disappoint your imagination,” Qui-Gon said, refilling a hay feeder - presumably for the horse that was milling around - before shouldering the door open.

As he walked in, the first thing Obi-Wan was greeted with was the tantalising aroma of cooking food, something rich and warm that made his stomach rumble and Qui-Gon chuckle, 

The inside of the house was cosy, the ceiling was low, but just high enough for Qui-Gon not to hit his head against anything, the wooden floors were covered in rugs and the log fire burned brightly in the corner. Obi-Wan barely had to reach out like Qui-Gon taught him to know that he’d built the house himself, and made almost everything inside it with his own two hands. 

There was a mixture of high tech items and what could be made from the land, marking out the few things QUi-Gon had brought with him, and the things that he had created himself, and Obi-Wan tried not to be nosy, even though everything inside the cabin fascinated him, almost as much as the man it belonged to was starting to. 

“This can’t be real,” Obi-Wan said, seeing a roughly built loom in one corner, and a stack of datapads in another. 

“And yet,” Qui-Gon smiled, moving to stoke up his fire.

The cabin was only one room, although there was a hanging curtain partitioning Qui-Gon’s bed from the rest of the house, but Obi-Wan supposed, if you lived here alone perhaps rooms within your house mattered less. It was small but not crowded, and Obi-Wan didn’t feel constantly underfoot as Qui-Gon moved over to the stove in one corner. 

He sat down on the two seater couch in the middle of the room, in front of the fire, it had a covering of rich browns and greens that Obi-Wan would bed had been made from the hapdash loom in the corner, but when he lifted the covering, saw the sleek grey that most space ships favoured, and wondered if that was where it had come from. 

“How did you get out here?” 

“How do you think?” Qui-Gon asked, a genuine question, challenging Obi-Wan to think. He huffed, preferring Qui-Gon to just tell him, but he had been taken in from the cold, and knew he should be polite. 

“I think you landed your ship somewhere close.”

“Correct. Do you like root stew?” 

“Yes,” Obi-Wan asked, the truth, though he would have said it no matter what Qui-Gon offered him. “Why here, in this forest, on this planet?” 

“Because the planet is secluded even for the outer rim, because it’s untouched by the republic or the Hutts or others like them and therefore removed of any temptation I might have to involve myself. Because the forest was beautiful and it offered me an opportunity to be alone,” Qui-Gon replied, stirring at the pan. “But most of all because the force told me I should land here.”

Obi-Wan wanted to ask about the force, his curiosity growing with everything Qui-Gon said. But that same thing - that same force - nudged him to ask a different question. 

“Why did you want to be alone?” 

He regretted as soon as he had asked, the second time this force had led him astray today, as Qui-Gon’s usually open face shuttered off and darkened, and he turned back to the pan, stirring needlessly. 

“I had been surrounded by people too long, I craved the quiet,” Qui-Gon answered, but the words rang out false, even without the help of the force. 

Silence stretched out between them and continued until Qui-Gon served up two bowls of the steaming, delicious smelling broth. Obi-Wan was reminded of stories he was told as a child, of excepting or taking food from strange places, and ending up trapped there forever. But as he sat opposite Qui-Gon, there was a weariness in his shoulders, and a crease to his brow that hadn’t been there before, and Obi-Wan knew that his question had effected him. 

“Can you tell me more about the force?” Obi-Wan asked, not liking the silence the more it stretched.

“I can tell you that you should have been trained to move it. It is an energy that binds and connects everyone, and everything.”

“Everything in the forest, or on the planet?” 

“Everything in the universe,” Qui-Gon replied with an indulgent smile. Obi-Wan had never even left his planet, there was a spaceport in the only city, hundreds of miles north, but his family had never had the means nor the reason to go there. 

“But what is it?” 

“It belies explanation, in many ways. I think trying so hard to define it is why the jedi have so many flaws and rules. It is everywhere, in everything, and those of us who are force sensitive - like me and you - can feel it and it assists us.”

“So we can manipulate it and use it?” Obi-Wan asked, and that furrow which had so recently smoothed out reappeared between Qui-Gon’s eyes. 

“Those are harsh words, it cannot be controlled any more than gravity, and we should not try to. It is a natural force. But it can be...channeled, give us warnings, cushion our falls. Has it never helped you?”

“It usually gives me warnings. Helps me pick the right path. Less so today.”

“What do you mean?” 

“It kept telling me to go deeper into the forest, and I got lost,” Obi-Wan huffed, before moaning embarrassingly as he took his first spoonful of stew, just as delicious as it had smelt, and warming him up from the inside out.

“You got lost rather close to the only cabin in the entire forest,” Qui-Gon said. 

“What are you implying?” 

“Perhaps the force was leading you here.”

“Why would it do that?” 

“I don’t know,” Qui-Gon said, before murmuring to himself, low enough that Obi-Wan knew he wasn’t supposed to hear. “Why would it get me to land here.”

“What’s its purpose? Or I mean, what can you use it for? I can lift up rocks sometimes, I used to pelt them at people when I was little and pretend it wasn’t me,” Obi-Wan said, shifting the conversation before Qui-Gon could fall into melancholy again; instead he chuckled at Obi-Wan, blue eye twinkling.

“It’s impressive that you could do that as a child, lifting objects isn’t the easiest skill you can learn,” Qui-Gon smiled, and Obi-Wan felt more accomplished than he ever had in the village. 

“Who says I was a child?” Obi-Wan asked with a cheek smile, mesmerised by Qui-Gon’s laugh,which only grew when Obi-Wan used the force to gently flick one of the flower adoring the simple table at Qui-Gon, who caught it easily. 

“Touche,” Qui-Gon said, smelling the flower and returning it to its wooden vase, Obi-Wan could swear the orange of the petals got brighter after Qui-Gon touched it. “You’ll need to stay here for three days - I know how that sounds,” Qui-Gon said, holding his hands up placating when Obi-Wan looked up in alarm. “It’s something about the forest. Ten years here and I still don’t understand it. But for three days it is unsettled, and on the fourth it grows calm again, over and over. It is likely why so many from your village have gone missing in it over the years.”

“Unsettled how?” 

“It is just a feeling from the force. Like it wants to swallow wayward visitors. You were lucky to stumble in on a fourth day, or perhaps that was the force’s doing as well. But it’s past midnight now, it won't be safe again for three days.”

“Even with your mysterious force?” 

“We could possibly survive it...but I wouldn’t be happy taking you through it, something could happen to you under my care. I wouldn’t want that,” Qui-gon answered, sounding uneasy, it made Obi-Wan wonder if something had happened once, to someone Qui-Gon was looking after. 

“Well, sounds suspicious, but I suppose I shall have to trust you,” Obi-Wan said, knowing there was no way he could navigate it alone. 

“I can teach you how to reach out more fully with the force, you could sense it for yourself?” Qui-Gon said, even though he could probably feel that Obi-Wan was mostly joking. Qui-Gon had had plenty of chances to harm him already, and had taken none of them. 

“I suppose I’m a little curious,” Obi-Wan said, although to be honest, he was far more curious about the man himself, and what had lead him to live alone in a cabin in the middle of a moderately hostile wood for a decade, but considering how quickly he had shut down before, Obi-Wan didn’t want to push his luck by asking again. 

“It’s settled then, I’ll show you in the morning. But for now it’s late, and we should probably both be sleeping,” Qui-Gon said, collecting their empty bowls and putting them in the sink for the morning. 

They had a brief argument when Qui-Gon set Obi-Wan up in his big warm bed, and folded himself awkwardly on the couch that was a couple of feet too short to be comfortable. Qui-Gon insisted that he was fine, and even after Obi-Wan argued that he would be find on the couch because he was considerably smaller, Qui-Gon refused to be allowed in his own bed, making a joke about Obi-Wan just wanting to steal his prime spot by the fire. 

Obi-Wan still felt awkward when Qui-Gon was snoring, his two loth-cats curled up on his legs and chest as he slept, but the cabin was warm and the bed far more comfortable than it had any right to be, and before Obi-Wan was fully aware of falling asleep, there was light coming in through the windows, and the sounds of Qui-Gon moving around his small kitchen. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. You had a late night.”

“So did you,” Obi-Wan pointed out, feeling embarrassed that he had slept while Qui-Gon did the washing up from the night before. He should have offered, should have insisted, probably. 

“But I had a far less stressful day,” Qui-Gon reasoned, but still Obi-Wan hurried to make use of himself, managing at least to help his host set breakfast on the table.

After a late breakfast and Obi-Wan strong-arming his way into doing the washing up, Qui-Gon took him outside and they knelt together by the treeline, Obi-Wan wondering what he was about to learn about the energy that had been a part of him his whole life.

Everything Qui-Gon told him was somehow both vague and illuminating, saying nothing at all but describing the force - as he called it - perfectly. He showed Obi-Wan the basics of opening his mind to feel the currents, how to reach out to something, like the forest or a person, and feel its intentions, its presence in the force; light, dark or grey; settled or unsettled. 

Qui-Gon was right that the forest felt far more unsettled today than it had the day before, Obi-Wan had never noticed before, little reason to go inside it, even less to reach out with the energy and try to parse it’s intentions - he’d never really thought of a forest as having intentions before.

He preened when Qui-Gon praised him, surprised at how quickly Obi-Wan was able to achieve the things that he asked him to do. Obi-Wan smiled and reminded him that he’d lived with this energy his whole life - it was no stranger to him. Still Qui-Gon insisted it was remarkable, went on a rant over dinner about the jedi choosing to leave him here, and doing more to heal that old wound than anyone else had ever managed. 

If Qui-Gon had left, perhaps it was a blessing that he hadn’t been chosen either, perhaps the life of a jedi was not such a sought after gem, perhaps he was happier right where he was. 

The three days passed remarkably quickly, not filled with stilted conversation and the awkward behaviours of two strangers living on top of each other. Obi-Wan got better at reading the forest, and Qui-Gon certainly seemed pleased with his progress, especially when he could point in the direction of his village without any help. 

“There see, you should avoid getting lost in the future,” Qui-Gon smiled, pressing a hand to the bark of an old tree on the line, the closet to his cabin. It had the strongest signature of any Obi-Wan could feel, something...Qui-Gon about the tree, from the proximity they existed in. 

“If you don't get lost, what happens to you if you walk through the forest when it is unsettled?” Obi-Wan asked, thinking about the _thing_ he could feel brewing around him that had sent him into such a panic when he had become lost and the hour grew later. 

“Difficult to say, and I’d rather not find out. And I’d rather you didn’t find out either,” Qui-Gon replied, heading back to the cabin. Obi-Wan stayed a few minutes more, looking out into the forest and feeling a darkness there that hadn’t been there three days ago. He decided Qui-Gon was right. 

He tried to argue with Qui-Gon every night about being forced to steal the older man’s bed, even one curled up on the couch early in an attempt to insist, only to find himself lifted up as if he weighed nothing and dropped on the bed anyway, Qui-Gon chuckling as he walked away and Obi-Wan desperately hoping that in the low candle light his blush hadn’t been noticed from being handled so casually.

They left at first light on the fourth day, Qui-Gon bringing a small pack of food with them and the cats following them as they set out of the cabin. Obi-Wan couldn’t help the wariness he felt at the edge of the forest any more than he could help the melancholy he felt at leaving the cabin. Suddenly he realised he was unlikely to ever return to the cabin, or see the handsome man that lived there again. 

“Reach out with your feeling Obi-Wan, the forest will not harm us today,” Qui-Gon said, a large hand at the small of Obi-Wan’s back, urging him on, and he missed it when it fell away. 

They walked in silence for a long way, the walk would take a few hours, and Qui-Gon had to make his way back before it became unsafe again. But even so he had Obi-Wan pick out the route, using the force to work out where he needed to go, the safest path to get there. Obi-Wan managed, but it was difficult, when a part of the force - the part that had always been as natural as breathing to him - longed to return to the cabin instead. 

“You seem sad Obi-Wan. Aren’t you glad to be returning home? I am sure your family will be pleased to see you,” Qui-Gon encouraged, Obi-Wan had felt him caressing the edges of his mind with the force, inquiring about his feelings, politely, and Obi-Wan hadn’t done anything to ask him not to. They were only half an hour from his village now, he could feel its energy, the way it pulsed in the force like a vibrant purple nebula.

“It will be good to put them out of their worry,” Obi-Wan replied, Qui-gon cause his arm when he stumbled over a root. Qui-Gon never seemed to stumble, always knew precisely where to place his feet, Obi-Wan wondered if that was the force as well, or just Qui-Gon. 

“But?” Qui-Gon prompted, releasing his arm and needlessly steadying his hips as he stepped onto and over a large downed tree, sending a small thrill through Obi-Wan. He remembered the young women in the village his mother had been not-so subtly trying to push him towards, and how dainty their hands were, how strange they thought his ‘sorcery’ was, as they called it there. 

“But I fear that I shall miss you,” Obi-Wan admitted, not sure what he had to lose by doing so. Qui-Gon gave him a soft look and they continued walking for a while, in silence, but Obi-Wan recognised the pensive look that had fallen over Qui-Gon’s face. 

They were close to the village, had begun to hear the sounds of it through the trees, the bluebell line at their feet before Qui-Gon stopped walking and spoke again. 

“I should leave you here, but, you could visit me, when the forest is safe, perhaps. I am confident you could find your way, and I could teach you how to use the force. If you wanted,” Qui-Gon offered, voice measured. 

Throughout his stay at the cabin there had been something, a reticence that walked hand in hand with Qui-Gon’s offer to teach, juxtaposing his offer to teach in the first place. Obi-Wan could tell that he wasn’t sure about teaching, though he didn’t know why. What he did know was that with his measured voice and careful gaze into the distance, it had meant something to the other man to offer at all. 

“I would like that,” Obi-Wan beamed up at Qui-Gon, which took some of the care from his face, put something softer in its place. “Perhaps every couple of weeks I could travel on a safe day, and return when the forest is friendly again. Unless that is too much of me, I wouldn’t want to encroach on your solitude.”

“No that sounds...nice. I have enjoyed having you around these last few days. I think I’ve grown too used to being on my own.”

“Why don’t you come to the village with me, for a while, if you wanted to be around more people?” Obi-Wan suggested, wondering now if Qui-Gon lived alone in the forest as some kind of self imposed exile, cutting him off from the company he clearly wanted, for some perceived wrongdoing. 

“No thank you Obi-Wan. I don’t think I’m…” he trailed off, struggling for words in a way Obi-Wan had never seen him. 

“There is no pressure. But if you wanted to, one day, you’d be welcome. Well, the others would probably be suspicious for a while, but you’d be welcome with me, at least, and they warm up eventually,” Obi-Wan explained, thinking about his uncle and his grumblings that inevitably turned into rumblings around the whole village but then just as inevitably were forgotten in a few days. It made Qui-Gon smile, at least. 

“Thank you, Obi-Wan, I will see you soon, perhaps,” Qui-Gon said, and started disappearing back among the trees before Obi-Wan could reassure him that he would. Sapir and Tarine nudged his legs for one final head scratch, and then bounded after their enigmatic friend.

Obi-Wan enjoyed a final moment of calm before he emerged out from the forest. There was shouting that turned to a clamour when he was spotted. His mother tore across the grass towards him, and he was at least, genuinely very sorry for the anxiety and fear he had caused her. But as she hugged him tight, he couldn’t help but look over her shoulder, back out towards the forest. 

\--------------- 

Too say that there had been protests when he had announced his intention to return to the forest would be putting it mildly. There had even been talk of locking him up so that he couldn’t go, he wished he hadn’t said anything, but then he would remember his mother’s anguish, how sure she had been that he was dead, and knew that it was better she knew. 

They barely believe his story - and many of them didn’t at all - about a man that lived in the woods, the energy he had felt his entire life, being taught to use it. About half the village thought he had gone completely mad, but none of them could deny the fact that he had spent four days in the forest, and somehow returned unharmed. 

He had kissed his mother and assured her he would be back in four days when he left, she had tried to get him to stay, but Obi-Wan felt compelled to go. He would be fine, and his mother had a village of people around her, Qui-Gon was alone, and Obi-Wan didn’t like that. 

It was strange, walking through the forest alone, even within the bluebell line, had always had a queer feeling to it, something just on the fringes, but now it seemed like it greeted Obi-Wan as an old friend. He moved through it easily, never once fearing that he had lost his way, stopping to eat the lunch he had packed perched on a low branch of one of the trees. 

He heard Qui-Gon before the trees opened up to reveal him, heard the rhythmic heavy sounds of chopping wood. He pushed through the last few trees before the clearing, and Qui-Gon instantly looked up, having noticed his presence in the force, despite the quiet with which he was moving. 

“I didn’t expect you to return,” Qui-Gon said, and Obi-Wan was the one who ended up fumbling in surprise as his eyes raked over Qui-Gon’s form, so tall and broad, without a shirt as he cut his firewood, his muscles covered in a fine sheen of sweat that Obi-Wan had a sudden desire to taste. 

He pushed the feeling away and smiled at Qui-Gon, wide and honest. 

“You should have more faith in me,” Obi-Wan said, coming down towards where Qui-Gon was cutting wood, drawn in by the smile offered to him. 

“I think it was me I had little faith in, I am not a good teacher,” Qui-Gon replied, putting his axe down and reaching for his ship. Obi-Wan felt a twinge of disappointment, until Qui-Gon used it to mop some of the sweat from his body rather than cover himself. 

“Whoever told you that is a liar, even you said I was learning faster than you expected,” Obi-Wan replied. 

He wanted to learn how to use the force, it felt right to know more about the energy that had been with him since he could remember. But if he were being honest with himself, it wasn’t even half the reason he had come back. The force was telling him to return, but not for itself. 

“A reflection on you, not me,” Qui-Gon said, determined to refuse the compliment Obi-Wan was trying to pay him. Obi-Wan wondered why, there had been plenty of other compliments he had paid the other man on his last visit that he had accepted easily. “But, I shall do my best for you. How would you like to begin?” 

“With some food?” Obi-Wan asked, making Qui-Gon smile and laugh as he led the way into his cabin. 

Over the days Obi-Wan stayed with Qui-Gon he learned a lot, and unsurprisingly found that he was an excellent, if slightly hesitant, teacher. Meditation was the first thing Qui-Gon insisted on, though Obi-Wan couldn’t help but think there were more interesting things they could be doing, he did enjoy the moments of quiet, the way sat close together out in the clearly or by the fireside their force signatures tried to nestle together.

The only disappointing thing was that Qui-Gon always tentatively pulled back when their signatures got too comfortable together, started to merge. He said that it was a little like cooking, easier to combine the ingredients than separate them, and Obi-Wan supposed that made sense, though he never explained what the combination would be. 

More fun, were the exercises Qui-Gon blindfolded Obi-Wan for. He was hopeless at first, Qui-Gon pelting him with deftly - but not viciously - thrown apples as he struggled around trying to catch them and reacting too slowly, doubling over from a surprise apple to the gut, only to then get hit on the ass instead while Qui-Gon chuckles warmly, barely able to get his ‘reach out with your feelings’ instruction out around his laugh.

Obi-Wan whooped in victory when he caught the first apple, jumping up in the air and taking a bite, unsurprised to find that Qui-Gon picked ones that were perfectly juicy and crunchy. He lifted up his blindfold and winked at Qui-Gon, who shook his head fondly, and Obi-Wan wondered if they really had only just met, because it didn’t often feel like it. 

Learning to move things was possibly the task Obi-Wan struggled with most. He had always been able to do small things if he concentrated, but it wasn’t exactly a skill he had spent a long time honing, as most of his life everyone around it had called it magic, and gently scolded him for doing it. But Qui-Gon seemed convinced that Obi-Wan would be able to develop this skill, going on long rants that left Obi-Wan blushing about his progress in just a handful of days. 

It was exhausting, and Obi-Wan hated feeling like he was failing Qui-Gon - and he could tell that every time he didn’t lift whatever Qui-Gon was asking him to lift or move - a bucket, the branches of a tree, Sapir, a saucepan - that Qui-Gon blamed his teaching for the failure. Small things he could do easily, rocks, leaves, even the apples Qui-Gon threw at him, but he struggled with anything bigger. 

Qui-Gon told him that size was only in the mind, and Obi-Wan had no idea what he meant by that, after all, to take a random example; Qui-Gon was much larger than him. Literally, not just in his mind. ‘If you can lift a rock then you can lift a boulder’ made little sense to Obi-Wan as well, and they got into a heated debate about weight, mass, gravity and bodily strength which led to an interesting - but just as confusing as usual - conversation about the nature of the force and Obi-Wan all too aware of just how much Qui-Gon could apparently lift unaided by the force.

When he did - finally - manage to lift a very disgruntled Sapir off the floor and into his lap using the force he wasn’t sure which one of them was happier, but he found himself being lifted and spun around - an even more disgruntled Sapir squashed between them - as Qui-Gon showered him with praise. 

But for all that Obi-Wan was in good shape from all the manual work in a village like his, he was no jedi padawan that had been through rigorous physical training since he was a small boy, and he had to remind Qui-Gon more than once that he couldn’t do exercises and katas all day. Even the metal exercises, if he wanted to keep Obi-Wan’s attention for them, had their limits. Besides, he had brought with him what he would need to bake some bread for Qui-Gon, which seemed like the least he could do in return, and afforded them some peace.

“I love the smell of baking bread,” Qui-Gon said, finally having acquiesced to sitting and waiting while Obi-Wan made their lunch. 

“Realising how much you missed it, out here all alone?” Obi-Wan asked with a grin, it would be ready soon, all he needed to do was get the soup up to temperature as well. 

“It’s never been in my life enough for me to miss it,” Qui-Gon said, and Obi-Wan thought about how different their lives were; of course in space being some brave jedi warrior Qui-Gon had never had the smell of baking bread. 

Obi-Wan liked his bread and soup, but what he liked more was seeing how much Qui-Gon liked it, and he wondered how someone lived as long as Qui-Gon had, without the simple pleasure of home baked bread made just for you. That was a comfort Obi-Wan had known before he could walk. 

“Why does everyone feel different to you in the force?” Obi-Wan asked after he’d taken the last few bites of bread. 

“What do you mean?”

“Most people feel different to one another, but muted, like my eyes and ears are still my best senses to see them. But you, you’re so vibrant in the force, like, I’m not sure...like a forest,” he smiled, looking out the window to all the bright greens and life between the trees. “But one a little more settled than this one. And I mean the whole thing, not just one tree.” When he looked up, it was difficult to describe Qui-Gon’s expression, soft, surprised, something else entirely. 

“It is because we are both force sensitive. People who have a lower midichlorian count, we can feel them with the force, but they’re, as you say, muted. Other force users are much brighter, our signatures much stronger. Every one of them feels different. No on has ever described how I feel like that before,” Qui-Gon replied, drumming the fingers of one of his hands against the wooden table, Obi-Wan wasn;t sure he knew he was doing it. 

“Perhaps it has changed, you have been out here a long time, among the trees,” Obi-Wan smiled, sensing that whatever it was in Qui-Gon’s past that he dearly didn’t want to speak about, he would like to be removed from it in more than the physical. He was paid another soft smile in return. 

“I had never thought about that.”

“What do I feel like? In the force, I mean,” Obi-Wan asked, and Qui-Gon settled back on his chair, carefully considering his answer. 

“You feel like a clear blue sky. A breath of cool air after an oppressive summer. A relief, a balm. That is how I would describe you in the force,” he said eventually, and he had the good grace not to comment on the blush that then stained Obi-wan’s cheeks. 

Before he left on the fourth day, he found a ship, through the trees - or, what used to be a ship - stripped for parts, in pieces and looking as much as part of the forest as the bushes it was encased in, but recognisable all the same. He glanced back over to where Qui-Gon was meditating with a serene smile on his face, and decided not to ask. 

He had a feeling Qui-Gon would tell him, when he was ready.

\--------------- 

By the time he was on his sixth visit, the people of his village were at least convinced that he wasn’t going to die out there, that he really had found a safe way to navigate the forest. Obi-Wan worried that it might tempt others between the trees, and laid his own warnings on thick, but they were all curious about the man who lived in the forest, who was teaching Obi-Wan how to do incredible things. 

“They really would like to meet you, you know. If only to know that I haven’t gone mad and aren’t making you up,” Obi-Wan said, even though he was supposed to be concentrating on plaiting Qui-Gon’s hair using only the force - fine force manipulation, he had called it. “My mother is especially pushy.”

“To be expected, it is my understanding that mothers are protective, no matter how old their children grow,” Qui-Gon said, and it made Obi-Wan wish even more that Qui-Gon could meet his mother, reminded that he had never really known his own, but he recognised a careful deflection when he encountered one. 

Qui-Gon’s reticence to come to the village was not new, he walked Obi-Wan back every time, unnecessarily, and hopefully Obi-Wan thought he was as keen to prolong their time as he himself was, but he always left him at the bluebell line. Obi-Wan was determined to get him to cross it one day. But he knew he had to approach with caution, in this, and in whatever from Qui-Gon’s past had driven him out here, in the first place. 

When Qui-Gon put a moderately whittled tree branch in his hand later in the day, Obi-Wan couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at Qui-Gon. 

“Not exactly as elegant as a laser sword, is it?” 

“Oh so you know about those then?”

“Everyone knows about those,” Obi-Wan said rolling his eyes. “Even we’re not that much of a backwater planet. You’d have to go at least two galaxies over before people didn’t know about the glowy deathsticks,”

“Deathsticks are something else entirely, I assure you,” Qui-Gon said, sounding amused as Obi-Wan mirrored his form as best he could. “Shoulde’s back a bit, spread your legs a little more. You’re too tense.” Qui-Gon said, moving away from his place to come around and help Obi-Wan find the best position, his large hands guiding Obi-Wan holding his hips and moving his legs apart and squeezing his shoulders to get him to relax. 

“I’m not going to be able to best you,” Obi-Wan pointed out, it didn’t matter how long Qui-Gon had been living as an outcast in the woods, that much was obvious, though he spoke mostly to distract himself from the hands on his hands, dwarfing them as he adjusted Obi-Wan’s grip. 

“I don’t expect you to, I am going to move slowly, I just want you to anticipate my movements, and I want to see what your natural response to that sort of approach might be,” Qui-Gon replied, moving back to stand opposite. 

Realistically, as cool as it would be to be a great fighter, the skill was completely useless to Obi-Wan. Learning to move things and anticipate things were skills he could use, even meditation had its applications in his life; but theirs was a peaceful planet, and Obi-Wan hadn’t seen any fight larger than a scuffle between disgruntled neighbours his entire life. 

But he paused before telling Qui-Gon this. When he had picked up the sticks lying against the wall of his house, he had paused and looked down at them thoughtfully, worriedly. Obi-Wan was observant, he hadn’t missed that they had been lying around since his second visit, but never picked up, like Qui-Gon wasn’t sure about this aspect of training. 

“You don’t like teaching me this,” Obi-Wan said, cocking his head to the side when after almost half an hour, he was sure of it. Qui-Gon’s usually expressive and expansive mannerisms brought close to his body, hsi voice quieter, his every move more subdued. 

“You’re a pleasure to teach.”

“An evasion, but not one I’m going to let go this time,” Obi-Wan said, and regretted his phrasing for the worried look that drew between Qui-Gon’s brows. “You don’t have to tell me why, but you don’t have to teach it to me, if you do not want to.”

“It is an important part of training,” Qui-Gon said, voice uncharacteristically unsure. 

“For a jedi, but I’m not a jedi, am I? I’m never going to have a laser sword, I don’t need to know how to use one. I can’t remember the last time someone so much as threw a punch here.”

“This planet does have a remarkably calm energy to it,” Qui-Gon admitted, and he sighed and put the branches back to rest against the side of the house. “Thank you, Obi-Wan.”

They spent the rest of the day doing other things, mostly Qui-Gon getting Obi-Wan to pick his vegetables for him, under the guise of having him identify each one while it was still buried in the soil. They cooked together these days, Obi-Wan bringing some spices from the village, things Qui-Gon couldn’t get ahold of out here, and he always baked bread. 

It surprised him, when halfway through their meal, Qui-Gon started talking, about something Obi-Wan had assumed would take much longer for him to feel ready to talk about. 

“Jedi have padawan learners, or, well, jedi can choose to have padawan learners, when they are knights or masters. My first padawan, Feemor, I had no idea what I was doing with, but I was young and confident and he was an avid learner and strong with the light side, and now he is a knight and I sincerely hope untainted by the legacy I left behind me.

“My second padawan, Xanatos, he was different. You see there are two sides to the force, the light and the dark. The jedi have plenty of rules about what can and can’t be done in the light, but I have always thought you can simply feel it, they resonate differently. When jedi turn to the dark they are...corrupted, broken perhaps. I do not wish to say they are evil, because nothing has even been so simple, but they are changed, and not for the better. 

“It is difficult for me to speak of, but I failed Xanatos, somehow, and he fell while in my care, turned to the dark. I still don’t even know why. The jedi high council bid me stop him, when he started to act out against peoples and places who could not defend themselves from him. I intended to bring him back to the temple, but when he realised he had lost the fight, he killed himself, and I failed him again, by now being fast enough to stop him. Xanatos, the death and pain he caused others and what he experienced himself was my fault.”

“Is that why you left the order?” Obi-Wan asked softly, trying to process what Qui-Gon had told him. His shoulders were hunched and he was looking off into the distance, as if he expected Obi-Wan to leave and never come back. As that were something Obi_Wan could possibly do, anymore. 

“Partially. The council saw my grief as attachment, berated me for it, expressed their worry that I was at risk myself. I didn’t want their judgement, and I never liked their rules. I had had enough of the life, so I left,” Qui-Gon finished, he didn’t have to say for Obi-Wan to know that he had isolated himself as some kind of atonement, that after Xanatos he had apparently deemed himself unfit to be around others. 

“I don’t understand much about any of this, but you’ve taught me enough about the force that I know it’s a choice to reach out for the light, and it’s a choice to reach for the dark instead. You cannot be held responsible for Xanatos’ actions, not even by yourself, you tried to guide him, but in the end it was his own choice. To reach for the dark, and to not allow you to help him. Stop punishing yourself, you don’t deserve it,” Obi-Wan said, reaching out and taking one of Qui-Gon’s hands in his own, squeezing it tight. 

“If I had met you, perhaps I would have been tempted to stay,” Qui-Gon said, looking at their joined hands and making something warm spread in Obi-Wan’s chest. “And then the jedi would have had two more than they have today.”

\--------------- 

Winter was an interesting experience in the forest and the cabin. Everything was colder and harsher, more difficult. But with the thick layer of snow covering everything, it also all seemed lighter, prettier and more measured. When he visited his footprints would be covered again by the time he left, the untouched snow shining in the sun, as if he’d been there forever, instead of a measly handful of days at a time. 

The fire kept the cabin warm enough, but there were limits to that warmth, and Qui-Gon was still insisting on sleeping on the couch for some ridiculous reason. Obi-Wan knew the glances they tried to surreptitiously snatch at each other, but he’d done nothing, wondering if this was one of the things Qui-Gon needed time for, or one of the things he needed a push for. 

But then he heard Qui-Gon suppress a shiver, and decided it was ridiculous. The bed was perfectly large enough for them both, and he had no intention of listening to Qui-Gon bitch about his cold toes all day again. So he got up and, shivering outside of his warm cocoon of blankets, dashed over to the couch. 

“This is stupid Qui-Gon, get in the bed,” Obi-Wan ordered, giving his best firm tone. Qui-Gon’s eyes were open, he was wrapped in a blanket and bathed in the glow from the fire, and clearly very _cold_. 

“No Obi-Wan, you’re the guest, I won’t leave _you_ to freeze on this couch.”

“We’re _both_ getting in the bed,” Obi-Wan said, willing his teeth not to chatter, hoping his cheeks looked rosy from the cold, hurrying on when Qui-Gon’s eyes went wide. “It’s freezing, and the bed is more than large enough for us both, and have I mentioned that it’s _freezing_.”

Obi-Wan didn’t wait for a response, darting back to the bed and diving back under the blankets, he was pleased when he looked up and saw Qui-Gon making his way over, bringing the blanket he had and adding it to the pile. He slipped into the bed carefully, not letting any of the heat Obi-Wan had painstakingly produced escape, and keeping his cold feet to himself. 

“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it,” Obi-Wan teased, refusing to let any awkward tension rise between them. 

“Imp,” Qui-Gon muttered fondly. “Get some rest, I plan to work you hard tomorrow, there is an advanced kata I think you’re ready for.” He said, leaving Obi-Wan smiling to himself as he rolled onto his side and went to sleep.

When he woke up, the first tint of morning creeping through the window and the fire thankfully still burning bright, Obi-Wan wasn’t cold. In fact, before he was fully awake he was warm and comfortable and lazily aroused, all of it no doubt caused by the large body spooned up behind him, the hot chest at his back, the arm draped over his waist, and the half hard cock pressed against his ass. 

Obi-Wan mumbled sleepily to himself, trying to remember a more pleasant morning, shifting his hips into the mattress before waking up more fully and properly comprehending the situation he was in. He tried to move, and Qui-Gon’s arm tightened around his middle; he tried to force-suggest that Qui-Gon let him go, but even asleep he was too strong willed for it. 

He knew he could get out if he wanted, but the prospect of how cold it was going to be out from the bed and Qui-Gon’s embrace had him extremely reluctant to do so, so instead Obi-Wan stayed where he was, and enjoyed it. He could feel Qui-Gon waking up - always rising with the dawn - his presence in the force shifted as he did, and he fidgeted in the bed. He held tighter to Obi-Wan, pressed up against him and lazily rolled his hips against his ass, lips brushing his neck before he woke up more fully, freezing in place and putting some unwelcome space between them. 

“I’m sorry Obi-Wan, I - , well, there is no excuse,” Qui-Gon huffed, Obi-Wan was just glad he hadn’t sprung from the bed. 

“Qui-Gon,” Obi-Wan said, turning over with a wiggle, determined to face Qui-Gon, but not let any of their warmth escape. He reached out between them and let his fingers rest gently against Qui-Gon’s chest. “I don't come all the way out here every week because I want to learn how to move things with my mind.” 

“Oh,” Qui-Gon said, as if he knew, but had never quite believed it until that moment. 

“Yes oh. So if you’d like to come back and continue warming me up, that would be very agreeable,” Obi-Wan said, biting at his lip and hoping he hadn’t pushed too far. They’d know each other for a long time now, but it was so easy to think of himself as moving too fast.

He had just enough time to start to really worry before Qui-Gon was on him, closing the space between them so quickly Obi-Wan barely noticed it happen, and it seemed of little importance when lips he had been dreaming of for months were finally on his own. Qui-Gon’s kisses were warmth and light, they filled Obi-Wan up from the inside and didn’t let him go. 

While Qui-Gon occupied his mouth, those large hands that had dogged Obi-Wan’s fantasies were on his body, heating up the skin wherever they touched, covering such large swathes of his skin at once, taking Obi-Wan from lazily aroused to desperate for more in seconds. 

“Qui,” he said between kisses, breath already shot, not even entirely sure what he was asking for as a hand slipped under his shirt and found one of his nipples, tugging at it insistently and making Obi-Wan moan, roll his hips and grind his hard cock up against Qui-Gon’s hip. 

“Anything,” Qui-Gn breathed in response, moving to press biting kisses to Obi-Wan’s jaw and neck, a hint of possessiveness flaring up in the force that warmed Obi-Wan up more effectively than any log fire. 

“Please,” Obi-Wan whimpered, he wanted everything, but they would have time, and more urgently he wanted Qui-Gon, any way he could get him. 

He was also rather invested in not leaving the warmth of the bed. 

Qui-Gon kissed him for long minutes, making no move for the covers as he manhandled Obi-Wan’s body more snugly beneath him and inelegantly pushed their sleep pants down. Obi-Wan moaned into his mouth as Qui-Gon started to rut their cocks together, Obi-Wan able to feel just how _big_ Qui-Gon’s cock was, pushing against his own. He wanted it inside him, so much so he couldn’t help but whimpered, but he knew neither of them had the patience or supplies to hand for that to happen now; but that was okay, they had time. 

“Oh fuck,” Obi-Wan cursed, fingers digging into Qui-Gon’s shoulder as the older man wrapped a large hand around them both, pressing their cocks together and stroking them , rubbing his palm over the head of Obi-Wan’s leaking cock, collecting the precome pooling there. 

“Already so wet,” Qui-Gon murmured, his hand gliding more easily over them both driving Obi-Wan wild so quickly, tilting his head up needily for more kisses. “I’ve wanted you for months. Since I first found you.”

“Me t-too,” Obi-Wan replied, biting furiously at his lip as Qui-Gon’s thumb teased the head of his cock. 

“Turn over for me,” Qui-Gon said, a suggestion more than an order, but Obi-Wan eagerly obeyed, stealing a few more kisses as he went, moaning when Qui-Gon plastered himself over his back, making him feel small in the best way. 

“Please,” Obi-Wan said again, voice breaking on every note as Qui-Gon’s teeth scraped at his shoulder, and one of his hands squeezed Obi-Wan’s ass. 

“I can’t wait until I have what I need to take you apart properly, but for now I want you to press your thighs together for me,” Qui-Gon purred, hand stroking Obi-Wan’s back, praising him as he did. “Is this alright?” Qui-Gon checked, kissing the top of his spine while his cock pushed insistently between Obi-Wan’s closed thighs. 

Obi-Wan nodded frantically, knowing if he tried to speak he was only going to let out a string of whimpers. The thick cock pushing between his thighs was a tease of what he really wanted, and he whined when Qui-Gon’s cock rubbed against his premium and balls, squeezing is thighs together as tightly as he could, hearing Qui-Gon growl and feeling the grip on his waist tighten in response. 

A wisp of cold air snuck into the bed as Qui-Gon moved for some leverage, but it was quickly chased away when he started thrusting his hips, his cock dragging back and forth between Obi-Wan’s thighs with such force he was dizzy with it. With one strong hand, Qui-Gon pulled Obi-Wan up from the bed just far enough to wrap a hand around his straining cock, and Qui-Gon stroked him in time with his thrusts. 

“You’re perfect,” Qui-Gon murmured, switching between filth and praise and private confessions as he chased their pleasure, letting out a low growl when Obi-Wan started to move with him, letting Qui-Gon fuck his thighs harder and fatser. 

In the force their signatures were mingling together, but neither of them were willing to stop to try and untangle them, and by the time Obi-Wan could feel his crescendo building, he knew there would be no separating them again, the realisation sending an extra spark of pleasure coursing through him. 

Qui-Gon was getting close, he could feel it in the force, in the tightness of the grip on his waist, the speed of the hand stroking his cock, and he squeezed his thighs together as tight as he could manage even as he wanted to collapse with the sensations Qui-Gon was pouring into him as a thrust his fat cock between Obi-Wan’s legs. 

Qui-Gon groaned as the friction on his cock increased, stroking Obi-Wan’s cock in a deliciously tight grip as they were both driven to the edge, ready to fall, panting each other’s names.

Obi-Wan came first, the hand stroking him and the cock rubbing against his premium and balls more than he could manage after what felt like months of wanting. Qui-Gon followed before Obi-Wan’s cock had finished spurting come into the sheets, coating Obi-Wan’s thighs in Qui-Gon’s seed. 

Qui-Gon worked them both through as they panted heavily, Obi-Wan keeping his thighs tight as Qui-Gon milked every last drop of come from his cock and continued to thrust lazily between his legs. When they finally collapsed in a hot, sticky tangle of limbs, he reaced for his shirt and cleaned them up as best he could, couvering the wet spot so that they could comfortably continue to lie in bed wrapped up together. 

“Are you warm now, my Obi-Wan?” Qui-Gon murmured, dropping kisses to whatever he could reach. 

“Very,” Obi-Wan replied, a slow smile spreading over his face. “But perhaps we should stay right here today, to make sure it stays that way.”

\--------------- 

With the snow still crunching underfoot, Qui-Gon faltered as a border of blue peeked above it, the flowers surviving even the harshest of winters, keeping the village safe from what they couldn’t sense. He looked out warily, hesitantly towards the sounds of a village at work. 

Obi-Wan held out a hand, and they crossed the bluebell line. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! <3


End file.
